Palaeoryctes

Palaeoryctes is an extinct paraphyletic genus of mammals from paraphyletic subfamily Palaeoryctinae within family Palaeoryctidae, that lived in North America from middle Paleocene to early Eocene.

Palaeoryctes

Fox, M. · CC0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
PalaeoryctidaePBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB, for Palaeoryctidae
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Palaeoryctidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Palaeoryctidae
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Palaeoryctidae

Time the record covers

At least 7.4 million years on record.

The record covers at least 63.4 Mya to 56 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 66 Mya to 48.07 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 0 of 30 occurrencesPaleocene — about 25 of 30 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 5 of 30 occurrencesEocene67–66 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences66–65 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences65–65 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences65–64 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences64–63 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences63–63 Mya — about 1 occurrence63–62 Mya — about 1 occurrence62–61 Mya — about 1 occurrence61–61 Mya — about 1 occurrence61–60 Mya — about 2 occurrences60–60 Mya — about 2 occurrences60–59 Mya — about 3 occurrences59–58 Mya — about 3 occurrences58–58 Mya — about 3 occurrences58–57 Mya — about 2 occurrences57–56 Mya — about 2 occurrences56–56 Mya — about 2 occurrences56–55 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences55–55 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences55–54 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences54–53 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences53–53 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences53–52 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences52–51 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences51–51 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences51–50 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences50–49 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences49–49 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences49–48 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences48–48 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences63.4 Mya56 Mya66.5 Mya47.6 Mya

30 occurrences of Palaeoryctes on record, most of them in the Paleocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

30 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

11 formations

Fort Union — 41.70°N, 109.00°WFort Union — 41.30°N, 107.74°WFort Union — 47.80°N, 106.10°WFort Union — 46.90°N, 101.50°WFort Union — 44.72°N, 108.38°WFort Union — 44.91°N, 108.93°WFort Union — 41.92°N, 108.56°WFort Union — 44.30°N, 109.00°WFort Union — 44.72°N, 108.62°WFort Union — 44.66°N, 108.30°WWillwood — 44.00°N, 108.00°WWillwood — 44.50°N, 108.00°WWillwood — 44.65°N, 109.93°WRavenscrag — 49.50°N, 109.20°WRavenscrag — 49.06°N, 102.75°WNacimiento — 36.57°N, 107.97°WNacimiento — 35.70°N, 107.00°WWasatch — 41.80°N, 110.70°WPaskapoo — 51.18°N, 114.43°WPaskapoo — 51.50°N, 112.30°WJbel Guersif — 31.61°N, 5.66°WSlope — 46.70°N, 101.80°WBullion Creek — 47.03°N, 103.65°W"Wasatch" — 44.00°N, 106.60°WAit Ouarhitane — 31.51°N, 5.61°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Palaeoryctes has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Palaeoryctes and its relatives

Paleocene

Where Palaeoryctes and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.

Found in the same rock

554 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 28 sites for Palaeoryctes, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

24 references

Each of the 30 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 12 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Palaeoryctes

Credit
Fox, M.
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itPalaeoryctidae through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Matthew 1913